How To Know If He's Really Cheating — Or If You're Just Driving Yourself INSANE

Suspicion is a terrible thing to experience, especially if it involves your husband or significant other.

In fact, it’s a not-so-subtle form of torture, one that can end up making you feel bitter, resentful, or even paranoid. After all, he’s the person you spend most of your time with, as well the man with whom you share the most intimate details of your life.

This situation can be even worse if you’re not entirely sure. It’s worse because it’s a state of mind where you’re as suspicious of your own perceptions as you are of his motives and behaviors.

If you’re currently experiencing this kind of confusion, it’s obviously an untenable state. No one could (or should) endure such uncertainty for very long. In other words, suspicion plus self-doubt would equal insanity for just about everyone.

So you’re feeling distressed, confused, and maybe even a little crazy from wondering, "Is he cheating?" That much we know for sure, right?

Once we’ve decided on that, it becomes a matter of what’s actually causing all this discomfort. Is he really cheating on you or are you doing all this to yourself? Well, that’s what we’re here to help you decide.

Read on to discover what you can do to find answers and some modicum of relief.

The first thing you’ll need to do is to have a look at yourself and your relationship history. We don’t suggest this as a way to deny your feelings or gaslight you in any way. It’s just important that you understand the role that your own psychological make-up might play in your suspicions.

Answer the following few questions honestly and you’ll discover how much you might be contributing to your own feelings of insanity:

Do you have significant abandonment issues or low self-esteem as a result of mistreatment during your childhood?

Do you expect too much from friends, family, or romantic partners?

Unfortunately, many people would say "yes" to at least some of these questions. But, if you answered "yes" to most or all of them, you might want to seek some help in clearing these issues up before you make any ultimate decisions about your relationship.

Bear in mind, however, that none of this means that you’re to blame for any of these feelings nor would any of these qualities mean that he’s not cheating. Hopefully, the next section will help you think about this part more clearly.

If you have a fear of infidelity, watch Dr. Hillary Goldsher's discuss how to overcome it and find forgiveness.

Pay attention to what he’s telling you.

Now that you’ve closely examined your own tendencies, we can discuss parts of your husband or significant other’s behavior that might be fueling your feelings of suspicion and jealousy. There’s a good chance he’s telling you everything you need to know about your relationship and his faithfulness to you.

Here’s how it usually plays out.

Infidelity is a psychologically significant event, even for the cheating partner. If your husband is cheating on you, he knows that what he’s doing is wrong and how much it could hurt you. He also knows very well what he stands to lose by acting on these impulses — namely, his relationship with you.

So unless he’s an extreme narcissist or some kind of sociopath, his acts of infidelity would have profound psychological consequences for him, ones that eventually manifest themselves clearly in his attitudes and behavior.

In other words, he’ll give off plenty of signs if he’s cheating on you. Let’s have a look at what some of these telltale signs might be.

Here are the 12 signs to watch for if you think your significant other or husband is cheating on you:

He’s consistently distracted or inattentive in ways that he hasn’t been before.

He’s become secretive with his phone calls, texts, and computer.

He’s constantly checking his phone for no apparent reason or taking it with him to odd places.

He begins to spend an excessive amount of time on social media platforms.

If you see more than a couple of these signs in your partner’s behavior, there’s a fairly good chance that he actually is cheating on you. You’ll have to make sure that your past experiences are not coloring your perceptions too much, but these are all signs you can generally trust.

Again, you have to face the fact that this state of uncertainty, self-doubt, and suspicion is one you must escape from as soon as possible. Otherwise, the problem will worsen and you’ll find it progressively more difficult to stop the onslaught of ugly feelings.

Simply put, you don’t deserve to feel that way, but you might have to ask some hard questions to get some relief.

Whether they’re well-founded or not, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the feelings of jealousy or suspicion that you’re experiencing. Either way, they’re a sign of something very important and instructive, right? If your suspicions turn out to be correct, then you need to address the problem of his cheating in one way or another.

On the other hand, if your suspicions are wrong and you’re actually driving yourself crazy, then it’s a good sign that you need to do some emotional work to reduce or eliminate them. Whichever turns out to be the case, it’s certainly better than the state you’re in now.

C. Mellie Smith provides tools and resources at her blog, Infidelity Healing, to help couples heal themselves and their marriage after the trauma of infidelity. Click here to get the help you need to save your relationship.